Sugar Sugar
by ninetytwochairsonetable
Summary: Ibiki reunites with a childhood friend. Things work out pretty well. This isn't a serious short, if that's what you're looking for.


Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I am not profiting from this. Mistakes, thoughts, comments, critiques, please tell me. Thanks.

I don't remember writing this, but I found it in my WIP folder. so here you go.

* * *

**Sugar Sugar**

"Good evening, Ibiki," Yamanaka Inoichi greeted the younger man before him who nodded curtly in response.

The two men sat silently for a moment in that cramped room. Despite the setting, there was no sense of discomfort nor fear.

Inoichi sighed, "I can only imagine how you feel, being on the other end of this table. Really, this is only formalities, but you know that." Another nod. "Shall we begin?"

"Yes, sir."

"What can you tell me about the one who refers to himself as Agent 146?"

"More than most."

"How did you two meet?"

* * *

"Are you the Sugar Ninja?" a voice to his left whispered. Ibiki startled, whipping his head around to face the mysterious voice. It was another boy. Ibiki had never seen this boy before in his life. And, the Sugar Ninja? What?

"The what? Sugar Ninja?" he asked, incredulous. The mystery boy only nodded enthusiastically, though his face remained grim.

"Yeah, the Sugar Ninja. You know?"

"... No." At his answer, the boy sat up and his face lost the creases of unnecessary concentration.

"Oh. I thought wrong. Sorry." Before the boy could leave, Ibiki asked another question.

"What's the Sugar Ninja?"

"Nono-san told me the Sugar Ninja comes to people who eat too much sweets, because he has a mean face, and he wants the sugar in the sweets to make his face look sweeter."

"Who's Nono-san- wait, I don't have a mean face!"

"Nono-san is-"

"Azuka!" a woman's voice called out from afar, catching the boy's attention.

"That's Nono-san. I gotta go, so bye," the boy whose name was Azuka bid Ibiki farewell, leaving him alone once again.

What a weirdo. Believing in things like the Sugar Ninja. Someone like that doesn't exist.

Ibiki had dreams of a mean-faced ninja that night. Totally not the Sugar Ninja.

* * *

"The Sugar Ninja story was popular in West Konoha to try to discourage kids from eating too much sweets," Inoichi recalled the fun fact a colleague told him some years back.

"Yeah, that's where the orphanage was. His caretaker told him the story for that reason but…" Ibiki trailed off, a small amount of amusement creeping into his eyes.

"But?" Inoichi prompted, curious.

"But it only made him steal even more. He wanted to help the Sugar Ninja achieve his dream."

"What a sweet kid."

* * *

"Hello." The same voice from before startled Ibiki out of his focus.

"Oh. It's just you. Don't scare me like that! I could've hurt you!" He held up his practice weapons to make his point. Though dulled, they could still inflict injury. The other kid didn't seem bothered by it.

"I'm Azuka. What can I call you?" It was a strange way to ask for a name.

"Ibiki."

"Hello, Ibiki. Here, have a candy." Azuka forced a hard candy in his mouth. "I wanted to give it to the Sugar Ninja, but Nono-san said he doesn't like stolen sweets. What are you doing?"

Ibiki was slightly off put by this random kid, but he seemed harmless.

"I'm practicing throwing weapons."

"Why would you throw them away? Aren't they useful?"

"No, not throw away. I throw them at the enemy."

"What if they catch it and use it against you?"

"Then I gotta throw really fast and really hard so that they can't."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Can you teach me?"

"Are you an academy student?" Azuka looked around his age, but he'd never seen him in the academy. Or anywhere near the area.

"No, I'm a student in West Primary."

"That's… a civilian school?"

"Yeah."

"If you want to learn, why don't you sign up for the academy?"

"I don't wanna be a ninja. I just wanna throw like you." Perhaps that flattered Ibiki more than he thought it did for he agreed to demonstrate and teach.

* * *

"It went on from there. Weapons, taijutsu, chakra control, ninjutsu, genjutsu… Whatever I learned at the academy, I taught him. In return, he told me whatever gossips and secrets he picked up from the streets.

"So he was never enrolled. No wonder we couldn't find any records."

"Did you check West Primary?"

"Ah, I heard that place burned down some years back."

* * *

"Heh, Morino, is that your girlfriend? On a date or something?" a classmate snickered along with his buddies. Ibiki and Azuka had gone to a sweets shop for a treat when they met Miki and his henchmen. They were bullies.

"My name is Azuka and I am a boy friend," Azuka stated, further exacerbating the problem.

"Oh, didn't know you liked boys," Miki actually looked surprised by that, not in any mean way, though.

"Ibiki can like whoever he wants-" Ibiki decided Azuka should not speak anymore.

"This is Azuka, he is a boy, and we are friends." Clear and concise.

"What kind of boy has long, girly hair like that? And also, Asuka? Such a girly name!" Miki the dickwad continued the mockery.

"No, it's Azuka. And are you saying Hashirama-sama was girly? And what's wrong with being girly? There are so many girls in the academy, and they are so strong and girly at the same time," Miki had no answer for that and left embarrassed, stammering out threats and whatnot. Azuka also left early that day, arriving the next day with a hairband in place to keep his long hair under control.

* * *

"He didn't come back one day. We always met up at the same place and time, but he just stopped coming for four months," Ibiki changed the topic.

"Why did he stop?" Inoichi asked.

"He never told me why. But I'm sure he knew I could figure it out."

* * *

"Azuka! Where have you been? I was seriously starting to get worried," Ibiki started with steam but trailed off in the end. Azuka looked beyond tired. Hollow. Dead. _Gone._

"What happened?" Ibiki started again.

"Oh, nothing much. How about you?" Azuka tried to smile. He was never very expressive, but at least emotions had come naturally. Not anymore.

"I…" Ibiki didn't know what to say.

* * *

It was strange, trying to catch up with each other. Everytime Ibiki asked about Azuka, the child would only steer the conversation away from him. He was avoiding everything about himself, and that worried Ibiki immensely.

Even still, they talked until evening. When his dear friend announced he had to leave, Ibiki almost begged him not to.

"Ah, hey, since you'll be a real ninja soon, let's make a cool code. Just between us. It'll be fun, don't you think?" Azuka suggested. Ibiki was just happy to spend a little more time with his friend, so he agreed.

"Okay, this is how it'll go…"

* * *

"He never told me what he was up to. I could only speculate. And it seems I was right in the end," Ibiki carried on.

"How did you find out?"

"Occasionally, he'd break into my apartment. Always sat quietly in the corner. Never wanted treatment. Just wanted to talk." He was so _lonely._ "He was always in uniform."

"Has he ever said anything about Root?"

"Once he told me about another 'friend' and how they taught him how to paint. Another time, I asked him if I could trust him. He told me, 'I love Konoha, and my boss does too.'"

"I suppose, in a twisted way, Danzo loved Konoha. It doesn't make your friend sound all that trustworthy though," Inoichi mused.

"Yes, but he promised me something."

"What?"

"Information. He practically begged me not to turn him in, and in return, he'd get information. Said he'd get it no matter what, no matter how long it takes. He promised, and he's never broken a promise."

* * *

Inoichi and Ibiki left that cramped room for another. It was an even more cramped room, considering the extra person already sitting at the table.

He was Azuka, Agent 146, Ibiki's friend.

Ibiki froze in his steps. That familiar face had been so childish and full of innocence, believing in things like the Sugar Ninja. Witnessing his friend's descent (into madness? Insanity? _death?_) had been difficult, especially since _there was nothing he could do._ And now seeing him after four and a half years of absence, Azuka looked foreign. Even more than before.

Ibiki stepped up to the man sitting at the table. His friend looked like a stranger. A stranger with no life.

"Azuka, I brought you tea," Ibiki started.

* * *

"Okay, this is how it'll go. We need a code that tells us we're absolutely safe."

"How come?"

"What if you're caught? And tortured? Or under genjutsu? How will we know when it's truly safe?"

"...Okay."

"So, this is how. If one of us is really out of it, the other will bring the Third's favorite blend of tea."

"Why that tea?"

"Because you can't get it outside of Konoha. With that tea, we'll know we're in Konoha at least. And then, like this…"

* * *

"Azuka, I brought you tea. And with it, one cup of honey, four packets of salt, and six cubes of sugar."

It was like a magic spell. The moment Ibiki finished that childhood code they never once used, Azuka's face crumbled. The blank slate of a face distorted as tears fell from his eyes and sobs tumbled from his lips.

"Ibiki, you remembered."

* * *

Azuka continued to cry, even as he produced files upon files from his tattooed storage seal, well hidden beneath his long, long hair.

He didn't stop crying for hours and hours, his heart wrenching cries echoing through the corridors. Ibiki hoped his cries would resonate through the entire building. He hoped the other Root agents in the holding cells will hear them. How his friend sacrificed everything for this day in hopes of liberating those agents he called friends. He hoped his T&I colleagues will hear them. How his friend was before anything else, high ranking agent or not, what he'd always been.

His friend had always been human.


End file.
